Disclaimer: moments of 3.x D&D reminiscence in this one.

I got this one for the avenger. I liked the concept of non-casting, non-aligned paladin. Also it reminded me of FR vengeance knight (a prestige class I never got to play). It delivered very much although I would have liked more if it had kept some of the self curing of conditions through his reparations. Allowing for bane property in his Instrument of Vendetta could be considered a bit on the OP side (the similar abilities never allow for bane because it the best +1 property if you can choose for what it is a couple times per day). The weapon proficiencies are still bungled as far as I know (paragraph wasn't properly copy-pasted) and he is still missing class skills. Although author(s) have claimed that since it's a paladin variant it should have his class skills, but I believe that Intimidate should replace Diplomacy, Spellcraft should be nixed (no spells, after all), and maybe re-arrange Knowledge skills. All that said, I very much love this class, and even if you don't need something vengence-themed, it is far easier to rework into a holy warrior than a paladin ('cause of no aligment focus).

The rest of the book is a very nice crunch toolbox for evil characters (much better than say 3.5 Exemplars of Evil, IMO), and even for relative short page count has descriptive moments and ideas that remind of Book of Vile Darkness (a great praise from me).

Great book overall, with good ideas to get started on a Greek Campaign, just did wish the deity session was a bit bigger but beside that, enjoyed the book greatly.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This sourcebook detailing the second of the two mayor factions/societies in Necropunk clocks in at 41 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1.5 pages of SRD, leaving us with 37.5 pages of content, so let's take a look, shall we?

We kick off with a more than aptly-written introductory fluff that makes me once again crave a necropunk AP and a novel before diving straight into the new crunch, namely, Welshen-specific archetypes, first of which would be the H'devvel - a kind of living philosopher/artist who receives points with which to inspire allies - for 24 hours. Other than that, the ability utilizes interesting bonus-type juggling and can be considered an interesting variant on the bardic concept (supplemented by the social combat system), thus replacing the base wild-card class's genius ability. Unlike most welshen, h'devvel are not geared towards efficiency sans compromise, instead receiving BAB and social atk-progression of the diplomat base class. Additionally, charisma and intelligence govern their wild card abilities. Interesting archetype!

Welshen Masques are a subset of diplomats that receive a wild-card's social bonus and BAB-progression -pretty interesting: They are trained towards hyper-rationality, allowing them to overcome their own bias (using int instead of cha for social maneuvers) and may utilize this auto-conditioning to make them hard to target with psi or fear. Rek'el engineers (not diplomats, as the pdf states) are masters of scavenging and may constantly modify their magnum opus - not only daily, but even multiple times per day at higher levels.

The School of the Crying Birds (also known as Le'Sara Qu'em) use Dex instead of Str to calculate damage and can execute flurries with bone knives - and if you recall how well these can be enhanced, you'll realize how lethal this makes them. Additionally, they utilize Perform (dance) in lieu of Acrobatics to govern path abilities. Executing attacks with both hands at the end of a charge, increased PPI-allocation capacities and receiving scaling AC bonuses versus targets they hit render this Qu'em school distinct and interesting. The Qu'em school of the Golden Lion may utilize Qu'em while wearing light or medium armor (later even in heavy armor!) and have to select to which type of weapon they devoted their powers. Increased offense capacity otherwise cancels out most defensive tricks a regular Qu'em has - and yes, the charges of these guys HURT...a LOT. The School of the Sil'Van receives a diplomat's social bonus progression and is ODD - why? Because the archetype receives increased defense-capacity, but is actually conditioned to be a pacific and only fight in self-defense. A sidebar explains the linguistic meaning of the name and another tackles the concept of non-violence - a conceptually glorious archetype, though I wished it ahd some increased capacity to deal non-lethal damage.

The H'teach diplomats are more skilled than regular diplomats, receiving +2 skill points per level and gaining slightly increased tech levels or a craft bonus feat for more advanced welshen. Beyond tehse, we receive an alternate class, the H'vuul.

H'vuul have full BAB-progression, good fort and ref-saves, 1/2 social bonus progressions, 5 PPI. EDIT: This archetype/alternate class does not mention HD or skills gained per level - which I assumed was a glitch. The author insisted and made the valid point that this was intentional since this is an archetype and thus uses the base class's HD - a valid point for sure. If, however, an archetype has a whole class table, a new skill-list etc., I think one can understand the potential for confusion. I humbly suggest to include these two pieces of information in similar presentations, if only to avoid confusion and book-flipping.

Now on the cool side, these guys can act in phase 2 while unobserved and later even extend this to phase 3 or phase 2 while being observed - this renders them pretty awesome in my book and yes, I can picture them doing their iconic, fast stealth takedowns. The class also is a specialist of guerrilla warfare, receives a cool bound weapon and the equivalent of hide in plain sight. They are also int- rather than wis-based. Apart from the skill/HD-guffaw, a flavorful alternate class.

Next up would be the new PrCs, first of which is the 10-level Hn'Ist Nomad - these guys get 1/2 BAB-progression, d8, 1/2 will-save progression and 6+Int skills per level. These guys may utilize special breathing techniques and throat chanting to render himself immune to the magpie's rube goldberg machine ability and all effects that require the expenditure of t'jek points - but thankfully, this defense, while quickly activated, also can only be maintained a limited time per day. This chanting can further penalize other classes, wrecking concentration, qu'em styles and even reducing the phase order of adversaries. The philosophy of Hn'ist also provides benefits towards aid another, as befitting a philosophy that treats the whole universe as one organism. No, I have not covered all tricks this unique PrC has. In a rather nice idea, weapons classified as eleven may btw. be used by welshen.

H'Te'shen, aka Master Qu'em are a 5-level PrC that represents essnetially the wise martial arts masters of the Qu'em and, once again, the nomenclature of this cool reace is neatly explained.

Of course, we also receive new welshen ethnicities, i.e. races - a total of 5 clans are depicted: Clan X'el receives +2 Wis and Con, -2 Int, counts as prime bloodline and gets +2 to saves versus poison. Clan Mac'bel receives +2 Con adn Wis, -2 Cha, Knowledge (history) & /faction: welshen) as class skills and +2 racial bonuses to these checks. They also 1/day may reroll one roll. Clan fe'shex receive +2 Str and Con, -2 Cha (this focus on melee being explained via being slightly degenerate and less important in Necropunk than other settings, so, for once, no complaints about a focus on physicality), a further -2 position category penalty, ignores welshen weapon taboos and receives Knowledge (warfare) as a class skill. Clan Dem'rel is shunned due to a strange fever (fully presented) that has haunted the clan - they receive +2 Dex and int, -2 Con. They may be immune against the fever, but their bodies constantly wage war against the dormant affliction, imposing a penalty of -4 on saves versus diseases and poisons. They receive +2 to Heal and begin play with a containment suit - for everyone within 30 feet of a Dem'rel runs risk of infection and even a save can only temporarily render immune to the highly volatile disease. I love this idea - the duality of healing and contagion, the thematic of (incurable) diseases and the accompanying stagmatization- you don't have to be a philosopher to realize the vast potential for great storytelling. And yes, while there +are* cures, they are expensive and rare... Clan Sil'Van is slightly too focused on mental attributes, with +2 Wis and Cha, -2 Str, but seeing they are the pacifist clan hinted at before among the qu'em schools, receive Survival and Knowledge (religion) as class skills and improved social maneuver teaching (plus optionally using wis instead of int for such teaching purposes) - so once, again - due to Necropunk's more diverse take and different class make-up, no complaints regarding this dual fixation on mental attributes.

So what comes next? the personal highlight of this book, at least for me - a concise and captivating insight into welshen culture and philosophy - from the take on cultural topics like gender construction to captivating, flavorful explanations of common wordings to songs, the unique concepts of honor, the paradox of moral correctness vs. the extreme emphasis on efficiency, honor duels, taboos - this whole section is so captivating, so full of imaginative potential, it's downright brilliant. I honestly and sincerely wished more racial write-ups or ecologies would attain this level and depth of inspiring concepts. While I was reading this section, I was, for a couple of pages, more immersed in Necropunk than I've been in many comparable settings ever.

Unless I've miss-counted, a total of 19 feats are provided (though formatting botched on the first page, changing the presentation of the feats slightly from bolded to non-bolded - but that's cosmetic) - on the plus-side, the feats come with cool flavor text - on the downside, "home is where the kife is" renders an otherwise cool sentence somewhat less immersive. Exclusive feats to supplement qu'em style, a degree of control over the Dem'rel's dread disease and yes, new tricks for the core book's qu'em tricks - all in here.

We also receive a new style, the Fau Quan - this style focuses on hampering foes with crits, breaking bones or intimidate foes upon defeating adversaries. Personally, I think the bone-breaking should have a scaling save-DC instead of a fixed one. Also pretty interesting -Knife-bending - a kind of style for weapons, it makes light weapons a better option that utilizes the off-hand for defense and retaliation.

A total of 3 campaign traits, from clan lord to youngblood, these are interesting. Further adding to the unique components of the culture, there are several sojourns - pilgrimages, if you will, with fixed durations and requirements that not only provide vast narrative potential - they could also easily be used as story-feats, with completion requirements and bonuses - a total of 6 such sojourns are provided and they left me excited for more. A total of 5 new welshen weapons, 4 new necrotechs and two welshen war tokens as well as rules for the creation of said tokens and new uses for the Appraise skill round out this pdf.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are okay - I noticed a number of glitches - from omissions of rules-relevant information to typos here and there, alas, this would constitute the pdf's weak point. Layout adheres to Little Red Goblin Games' 2-column standard in color that is pretty printer-friendly. the original b/w-artworks are glorious and capture well the flair of Necropunk. The pdf comes fully bookmarked with nested bookmarks for your convenience.

Scott Gladstein, Jeremiah Zerby and Dayton Johnson deliver one glorious supplement here - I adore Necropunk and the options herein have so much SOUL. The feel like lovingly crafted vistas of a true labor of love - the writing is diverse and intelligent, the new tricks added can be considered smart, the modifications interesting. The welshen culture is utterly fascinating and mops the floor with about 98% of racial supplements I've read - they feel concise, alive, believable. This pdf's writing, in the best instances, is absolutely superb. On the other hand, it does also feels like it was rushed at one point - the glitches in editing and formatting, minor, slight hiccups here and there ripped me out of the experience once in a while. Let's not mince words: I wished this book had received a bit more polishing. Non-scaling DCs, glitches etc. - there is a lot that simply isn't that awesome regarding the sheer mechanical execution. That being said, anyone owning the Necropunk setting or even remotely interested in how to craft a unique culture (which could be reappropriated for other races and settings) should definitely get this sourcebook - there are not that many books that make me wish I had a massive 200+ pages book on a culture, not that many that make me crave novels and more material to this extent.

This book left me torn - on the one hand, I usually tend to be pretty strict regarding nasty glitches that influence rules...on the other hand, every fiber of my being demands that I praise this book in the highest of tones for its superb culture and intelligent fluff. I want rate this 5 stars + seal of approval...and for me, as a private person, that is what this book is to me. However, as a reviewer, I can't do that - I have to acknowledge the issues this pdf has. If you require another analogy - writing rpg-supplements is both a craft and an art. The craftsmanship can be learned, but true artistry...not so much. Craftsmanship, in its apex, can be art of its own and the same holds true for masterful art. This pdf represents superb artistry in worldcrafting, but is somewhat hampered by the flawed craftsmanship.

Hence, my final verdict will be one of the rare cases where I rate a product at 4 stars, but still award my seal of approval. We need more books with this level of detail, more books that actually manage to bring a culture to life.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This bestiary for Little Red Goblin Games' SUPERB, intelligent dark-scifi-setting necropunk clocks in at 44 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1.5 pages of SRD, leaving us with 40.5 pages of content, so let's take a look, shall we?

This pdf kicks off with the new alien type and all required information to create more aliens - and these creatures are more colorful than you'd imagine - weird, yes, but also pretty organic. Resonating the themes of Necropunk, the aliens provided herein often hearken back towards strange insectoid beings or creatures that look like they may have spawned in an alternate evolution, so kudos. Attack Bug Swarms, gigantic clusters of nanomachines that can scourge and disintegrate foes, dissipating seamlessly upon facing too pronounced a danger -the adversaries herein are distinct and awesome and fit well not only within the context of Necropunk, but also within the frame of another setting.

Strange, squishy gas drifters with three tentacles, off aliens that look like a cross between a tapir and a kangaroo that can drain confidence with a mere gaze (including an improved, higher CR variant), deadly orbital crustaceans (that can leap hundreds of feet, generating deadly shockwaves upon impact), behemoth-like all consuming scoop mouths...or what about crosses between multi-eyed felines and hammerhead sharks? Yes, these creatures are alien and odd, but they are believable and have unique abilities and fitting full-color artworks. They also make good use of bulletproof defenses, evasive maneuvers and similar unique tricks, though, admittedly, I would have loved for them to make more use of Necropunk's unique rules-assets like social combat, phase combat and the psychic system. A further downside for those of you who want rock-solid stats - I did notice some (minor) glitches in the statblocks themselves.

Now I feel obliged to mention that the statblocks herein adhere to an unnecessary diversion from presentation standards - special abilities are presented not below the ecology section of the statblock, instead showing up right below the offense-section, before the statistics - this pulls the whole statblock unnecessarily apart and, while not impeding functionality, it does require some getting used to.

Beyond creatures, though, this pdf also provides us with Necropunk iconics, all with their own artworks and sample builds for level 1, 5, 10 and 15. A Total of 5 such iconics are provided and mooks, from mass-produced ghouls to security agents also help the DM.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are good, though not perfect - the non-standard formatting of statblocks, while consistent, is unnecessary and makes them slightly harder to read and the minor glitches beyond that remain a blemish on the file. The pdf adheres to Necropunk's printer-friendly two-column standard in full color, with most monsters receiving their own, unique artworks with a thoroughly distinct style. Kudos! The pdf comes fully bookmarked with nested bookmarks for your convenience.

Scott Gladstein, Jeremiah Zerby, Caleb Aylesworth, Maverick Bishop and Dayton Johnson have created a bestiary perhaps my favorite scifi-setting right now - I find myself craving a TV series, novels, more supplements for Necropunk on a rather regular basis and the innovative rules inherent to the system have found their way in one form or another in many facets of my home game. The aliens provided herein could have easily wrecked the distinct style, the hard to grasp cohesion of the setting's superb atmosphere. They didn't, so that's a massive plus for me. Instead, like many good scifi creatures, whether those encountered in George R.R. Martin's lesser known scifi stories (Necropunk meets Meathouse Man would be pretty interesting...) or those provided by classic scifi/pulp authors, they feel alive and believable. They also sport a diverse selection of unique abilities and tricks and the sample NPC-builds spare both players and DMs a lot of time. That being said, as much as I'd like to, I can't remain mute on the glitches in the statblocks, the unnecessary formatting decision that makes them harder to read. These constitute detrimental factors.

On the plus-side, though, this bestiary is cheap and makes sense in non-Necropunk-settings as well. Still, try as I might, I can't rate this bestiary higher than an enthusiastic 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 since the pdf is too good for a mediocre rating.

Endzeitgeist out.

Racial Guide 4 (hereafter RG4) is a very impressive collection of new races for Pathfinder, most of whom are like nothing I've ever seen before. Taken as a whole, RG4's new races present a surrealistic fantasy world, and if I were to run a campaign with RG4, I'd set it on a world where these 32 critters are the only intelligent species available. It reminds me of off-kilter fantasy like the classic Bashi Wizards, 9, or even the Dark Crystal or even unusual kids fantasy like Fraggle Rock. In short, maybe its the artwork, but I imagine these new races as imaginative Muppets, having semi-psychadelic adventures, and that's a very good thing.

With more than 30 races in the sourcebook, RG4 is mixed bag. There are some stinker races mixed in with some truly imaginative concepts. My favorite races in the book have a really strong theme, and I'll talk about them below, while some of the others seem merely like random mutations stapled together.

Of the races described my favorites include: Arma- who are hyper-competitive humanoids who can transform into magical weapons, basically a fantasy version of the Targetmasters from Transformers.

Behemoths- four armed, headless braichators.

Cuills- basically an Elf-like species whose race wide fertility problems (think Children of Men) have made them fierce protectors of children, distinguished by a thick bone crest on their neck that looks almost like a body-horror parody of Edwardian collars.

Kapre- spindly and physically frail stoner giants.

Talli- extremely fast breeding humanoids with a massive problem with death in childbirth, due to their incredible metabolic needs, ancestral memories, an adventurous disposition and iron-clad code of honor.

The book is a fine value. I'm giving it 4/5 stars, because as I mentioned it's a mixed bag.While I loved the races above, there are several others I can barely remember, or which had serious mechanical problems. For instance, while you can tell the authors really liked the Ouphre, and dedicated both page-count and several illustrations to this race of Labyrinth type critters, I wasn't too crazy about the mechanics behind the race. I felt their somewhat mutable mutations could of been handled more smoothly; for example, in Neo-Exodus, Louis Porter has a race that can potentially shift its survival adaptations regularly and he covers the same ground in fewer (and clearer) words.

Still, if you're a fan of non-traditional fantasy, get this book. You'll find at least a handful of new races to love., a few more races to like, and a handful to ignore.

CHRIS

Disclaimer – this review is based on read through and not actual playtesting.

Prestige classes have always had problems. In the olden days before Pathfinder, they were easy to abuse, dipping a level here and a level there to get something really super optimized. Then there was the fact that a lot of classes got boring at later levels, and prestige classes generally were a better choice than staying in your base class. Pathfinder changed that; the rule gave reward to those staying in a base class – lots of abilities based on class level, and new abilities gained, as well as capstone abilities. You take even 1 level outside your base class you lose your capstone ability. Not many campaigns get that far, but it does weigh on the mind.

Most prestige classes in Pathfinder are just not worth the effort. And some combinations of multiclassing don't work. The Exalted in Inner Sea Gods is an example of a different approach to prestige classes that weren't quite so problematic.

Really Simple Prestige Classes does this well.

Each class in the book is a 3 level prestige class, and aside from Runner, you cannot get into before 6th or 7th level. Runner, if you are human you could get into at 2nd level.

A lot of these classes seem unbalanced at first look – they seem too powerful – but that is a design point of the book; the classes presented make it a tough choice to take the class or take a level in your base class. Something most prestige classes don't do. Normally you are making a character to get a specific prestige class to get a character built around it. These classes are only 3 levels and give you character something really special to call their own, without requiring building from the ground up for that class. It lets you “dip” into the class for 3 levels and maintain balance with characters who stayed in base class.

I'm not going to go into the details of the classes, but this is a quick description of each posted in a thread by the publisher.

Acrobat: A three level class based around increases to acrobatics, evasion, and uncanny dodge. Arcane Dabbler: Pick up a few useful spells and metamagic feats without impacting your BAB or HD too much. Beastlord: Need an animal companion? Gain one that will be useful for the remainder of your levels as well as some nice abilities that focus on defeating/detecting beasts and magical beasts. Enchanter: Is magical crafting your thing? Enchanter cuts down on crafting time and grants you some of the much-needed feats, allowing you to bypass a lot of red tape. Magic User: Expand your spell list, boost your casting stats, and overall make your spellcasting more versatile. Metamagister: Metamagic feats getting you down? Offset them with this class without sacrificing your caster level. Runner: Need to get somewhere quicker? Runner boost your movement speed, deal with terrain challenges with ease, all while still offering attracting options for skirmishing characters. Weapon Master: Why be good at one weapon when you can be good at all of them? (As a designer put it, “This one is a golf-bag fighter”.) Weapon Specialist: Why be good at all the weapons when you can be an undisputed master of one? Gives early access to some weapon specific feats

Things I'd love to see in an update: Bookmarks – while it is only an 18 page PDF, 16 pages of content, bookmarks to take the reader to each class would be nice. They are presented in alphabetical order and it's small so scrolling to the class is easy.

There were a few editing mistakes.

These little drawbacks don't impact the worth of this book, nor it's amazing content. This is one of the best player centric books of the year – both in content, and taking the idea of prestige classes in new directions and making them very useful. Hope more books follow, and it inspires other publishers to do similar things. 5/5

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This massive book by Little Red Goblin Games clocks in at 172 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 7 pages of SRD (with some pages duplicating text from the adventure at the end of the book), leaving us with 163 pages of content, so let's take a look!

Now if you've been following my reviews, you'll know that I usually take apart crunch for races and classes in a pretty detailed manner. The problem with a book of this size and my approach is evident -were I to do that here, the review would bloat beyond compare. Hence, I'll be somewhat less detailed than usual in this review, picking out the cherries and the less than awesome components and highlighting them. Got that? Great!

So after a short introduction to the topics and tropes of WuXia/Wushu and the implied setting of Dragon Tiger Ox, we delve into the basic supplemental pieces of information. A basic introduction to a third alignment axis in the guise of honor can be found here, as can be new uses for knowledge skills to identify styles. Unlike in a standard assumption of a setting, each character receives a favored style through which they progress, counting their class level as BAB-prerequisites for the purpose of taking these feats. A similar terminology is established for ki-level - that means it class levels in a ki pool gaining class.

Additionally, a new combat maneuver may be used to disrupt styles, canceling their benefits and allowing the maneuver's executor to increase the amount of time entering a style takes. While not particularly effective in itself, the maneuver lends itself to a versatile array of possibilities to follow up on. What rather impressed me with its simplicity and yet, genius, would be the diversified martial arts - headbutts, kicks etc. all get their own damage-columns and bonuses - kicks tend to do more damage, but inflict the new off-balance condition on a character executing them. This system not only immediately makes flurry of blows actually interesting, it turned out to work in a rather balanced and cool manner when I tried it out. These alternate rules indeed are glorious and should be deemed a nigh must to make monks and martial artists in general a more interesting playing experience.

Now if you want to go for full-blown WireFu WuXia à la "Hero" and similar movies, an array of solid rules to achieve just that would be provided as well. On the downside, the suggestion to default gestalt as monks with other classes makes sense and fits the tone, but the lack of advice regarding power-levels of characters and adversaries when implementing these rules make them feel more like an afterthought. And yes, gestalting is explained in x guides online, but I maintain that introducing a suggestion like this should also be accompanied by a thorough examination of its ramifications.

Now for the more light-hearted among us, the bad dubbing rules that have you pantomime what your character means and another player say the words might not suit my tastes for a prolonged and serious campaign, mostly due to me trying to explore questions of ethics and psychology as well in my games, but for a fun evening with sake or beer, I can guarantee that the results can be utterly hilarious.

Now race-wise, aasimars and vanaras may choose new alternate racial traits (including a draconic breath weapon). The Guaiwu, one of the new races herein, would imho be just a tiny bit too strong with both darkvision and low light vision, though not by much - still a good example why the RP-rules from the ARG don't work as smoothly as they ought to and by no means broken. That being said, one could nitpick a bit here and there. The second race, the Samebito can be rather overpowered in any aquatic campaign - gaining fast healing in saltwater, these guys are per se a cool race, but one DMs should be a bit wary of in the context of nautically-inclined campaigns. Shishi are awakened from statues of foo lions/dogs and are celestial guardians - and here, I have not even the slightest gripe. On another note - the Guaiwu remain the only race that specifies its RP-cost, in case you were wondering.

A total of 11 racial feats allow half-breeds to have two favored styles, Gaiwu to shoot elemental blasts (with a VERY high range), gain blindsense under water, wield larger weapons etc. -especially the Gaiwu gain the brunt of cool tricks here, with one-handing two-handed weapons and gaining regeneration temporarily for eating oni-flesh being two examples that skirt what is balanced and what is cool. Generally, I do like the feats on their own, but the concentration of awesome tricks for the Gaiwu and relative lack of coolness for other races bespeaks a kind of favoritism here. Seeing how the race already is powerful when compared to the base races, the damn cool and iconic toys might push them over the edge for some DMs, so please read this one carefully. The good news would be that the options provided by themselves are not broken.

A short primer on languages had the linguist in me excited, though the level of detail of e.g. Necropunk's supplements is not reached herein. Beyond a new wildblooded draconic bloodline for sorcerors to represent the eastern dragon's flavor and a new one for ki-centric sorcerors that helps them not suck at ki-tricks/unarmed tricks - at least not as much. The ki/metamagic synergy gained at higher levels also makes for an interesting design choice here. We also receive the ki domain, whose ki-powered channel and the potentially extreme increase of radius for it can easily break the balance when taken in combination with variant channeling or simply a powerful channeling specialist, so take that one with a grain of caution.

Next up would be the 3 new prestige classes – in all brevity, 2 are full BAB-progression classes, the third a ¾ BAB-progression. The Shifu would be a master of one style on the verge of developing his own style – hence, the PrC receives a secondary pool, so-called prowess points, to modify his strikes with. In an interesting take, some of the class abilities depend on the base-class used to class into this PrC. If you happen to know the movie tropes – these guys learn the hardcore martial arts – dealing the same damage as last round via mirror palm (explicitly working with vital strike!) and elemental blasts make for iconic techniques that are powerful, but limited by daily uses. Beyond these, the PrC also receives a disintegration-style killer strike and an insta-death attack – especially the latter is not something I’m generally a fan of in classes that are not the assassin. Yeah, it exists in the literature and movies, but still.

The second PrC herein would be the Jade Warrior, which can be summed up best as a kind of holy warrior that strives to become a balanced paragon of stoic virtues, a kind of anti-dishonor-paladin, if you will – though one powered by ki with quite a few more unique abilities than I would have expected – I particularly liked that their wounds inflicted on dishonorable targets resist magical healing and may leave jade green scars unless treated by restoration.

The third PrC herein would be the Wolong – a hardcore strategist martial artist that learns tactician and similar tricks. While I am not a fan of the general option of a mechanic that allows for counter-strikes and ties the mechanic to initiative (d20 vs. d20 minus 5 – too much variance), I do like the ability – for while I don’t enjoy this component of it, the option to pick their turn apart and e.g. take move actions at a different initiative than standard actions etc. makes for some very interesting changes in tactics. The ability to command allies pales in comparison and has been done in more interesting ways in other classes. However, with the very strong and iconic round-break-up, more would have been unbalancing. That being said – NOT a fan of adding int to damage, even with a max class level caveat – stacking up multiple attributes to base damage is too easy to game.

A couple of rage powers and rogue talents allow for the parrying of unarmed attacks via blades and even monk-style tricks for barbarians, just before we delve into the meat of the setting information with a general overview of the celestial bureaucracy under the emperor. An assortment of suggested deities and heroes is presented, alongside a massive chapter on the diverse sample of clans, orders and schools. If you have access to LRGG’s Heroes of the East-series, you’ll also notice some synergy with the styles established therein, allowing you to easier weave a tangled web of diverse martial traditions and ideologies competing for supremacy.

Of course, no such book would be complete without a new chapter on feats and Dragon Tiger Ox surely delivers in that regard with a massive chapter and MANY, many feats. Rather weirdly, the necessary index-table shows up after the first couple of feats, but that is admittedly a nitpick. The feats themselves, as befitting of the theme, make ample use of ki and allow non-ki-classes to wilder in this territory; It should also be mentioned that these feats have been built with regards to a kind of compatibility regarding the “Heroes of the East”-series, which generally is rather neat. The fact that the exceedingly cool upgrade to Ki Cannon does not feature the prereq-feat from the HotE-series may gall some people, though. Beyond a significant array of regular feats, we are also introduced to so-called Forbidden Feats – these feats come with significant benefits, usually in the guise of significant damage to the character, even attribute damage, but allow the respective character to regain ki-points. Surprisingly, I have found no easy way to cheese these feats – while it is possible, it would require some deep digging and uncommon race/ability combinations not usually available t PCs, so…well done. On another note – it is a bit weird that follow-up feats to Forbidden feats not necessarily are forbidden feats themselves – there seems o be some minor thematic inconsistency going on here, but once again, that’s a nitpick.

As a nice nod towards the glorious Ultimate Campaign supplement, we also receive some thematically appropriate story feats that let you prove that YOUR style is the best…or that your school should be considered supreme to your rivals. Another array of new feats would be introduced herein – qinggong-feats, which essentially represent spell-like abilities that are unlocked via taking the feats. These abilities, while powerful, are tied to ki and burn quite a lot of this resource. The dispelling strikes that allow you to counter magic via ki deserve special mentioning, though I consider the forbidden technique that allows you to convert incoming spells into ki a perpetuum mobile of a finite resource that does require careful oversight. And yes, THAT one can be cheesed, but only at high levels. So yeah, no significant issue.

A total of 5 new styles can also be found within these pages – from the elven Drambor that rewards tumbling through and over foes to the leg irons using Rattling Chain, the styles are one thing – unique. They breathe a kind of inspiration absent from quite a few published styles out there. Now personally, I consider the Sacred Lotus Style’s option to substitute caster level for BAB for the purpose of delivering touch spells to be rather nasty – while it allows for certain builds to actually work rather well, it also has the potential to go rather awry and become OP depending on the resources you allow as a DM – essentially, as soon as you have a touch attack based class like the warlock-variants (e.g. Interjection Games’ superb Ethermancer), you may wish to think VERY hard before allowing this style. It should be noted that this remains the exception in an array that is otherwise rather interesting – rope-darts, ki-draining – generally, this chapter deserves accolades!

Now the styles have been ample clue here – yes, there also is quite an array of new equipment herein, namely cool stuff like Bond-style throwing hats, flying guillotines etc. – the latter would constitute the one totally broken weapon herein – not only does it have an x5 multiplier (as if x4 wasn’t bad enough…), it also has a damage dice upgrade when used in conjunction with Throw Anything. And yes, it does require a swift action to retract, but still…I don’t see the fun in luck being rewarded this much. Other than that, Umbrella Spears etc. make for interesting options that even allow for some unique tactics.

Where there are mundane items, there are magical ones and this book does deliver in this regard as well – beyond jade and peach wood as materials, an array of ki-powered jade masks, fans with the powers of the wind, wooden oxen figurines, leadening weights, enchanted gourds – quite a diverse array, often with primary passive benefits and additional, active ones that require the expenditure of ki. New magical armor and weapon properties as well as advice on the pricing of these items can be found within this chapter as well.

Now remember those forbidden feats I mentioned? Well, there also are the immortal clans and styles – taught directly by the immortals, theses styles are very powerful, but have significant, story-based drawbacks that really have a massive oomph – from slowly turning into a tree to becoming utterly reckless, these styles work exceedingly well -why? Because they use the ROLEPLAYING aspect to codify drawbacks in rather unique ways that can enhance the game rather than only relying on sheer numbers. These are feats for mature groups, yes, but damn fine ones – powerful, narrative gold here!

Becoming immortals would also be a distinct possibility and perhaps, most appropriate when going Mythic anyways – yes, this also provides advice on mythic adventures in the cosmos of DTO – From Universal to path-specific abilities, a vast array of mythic versions of feats etc. mean that there indeed is A LOT of mythic content herein to use. That being said, the balance, even within the context of mythic rules, has been stretched very thin by some of these options – being treated as always having 1 ki point and adding yet another way of regaining ki can be combined with these abilities to make some truly fearsome combos – now don’t get me wrong; I don’t necessarily consider this inappropriate in the context of Mythic Adventures – but the options herein are powerful indeed and may be considered too much for some DMs not going balls to the wall-crazy with mythic adventures.

A total of 4 different mythic-exclusive styles further increase the fantasy-factor here – clad, for example, in righteous flames, delivering negative levels by the attack – the mythic styles are extremely lethal, but also risky – more so even than the regular immortal styles. Once again, the caveat that they’re intended for the higher power-levels of gaming applies, though these provide less potential for abuse than the vast assortment of path abilities due to story-based limitations of their accessibility.

The final pages of this book are devoted to different ready-made encounters, which, among others, feature the challenge of a 36-chamber pagoda – and generally, I do enjoy these encounters. Alas, the statblocks provided here are rather opaque and the one time the layout failed – no bolding, no clearly distinguished attack/defense-sections – mind you, the words are there, but presentation-wise, the statblocks feel jumbled when they’re not – a good example that layout is important.

Conclusion:

Editing can be considered very good; I noticed no significant glitches that would have impeded my ability to understand the content; formatting is less impressive, though – I did notice a bunch of glitches especially in the formatting department: From feat names at the bottom of the page, with the rest of the text on the next page to flawed paragraphs and the aforementioned statblock-presentation, this component is simply not that impressive. Which is especially surprising considering the layout – DTO features a beautiful, elegant full-color 2-column standard that manages to still be printer-friendly. However, the book also sports rather broad borders, which means there’s less text per page. Additionally, many a page sports quite a bit of blank space – some optimization there would have probably spared me quite a few pages when I printed this out. The artworks deserve special mentioning – especially the character art throughout the book is drop-dead gorgeous and on par with the awesome cover. The pdf comes with massive, nested bookmarks that allow for easy navigation.

Designers Dayton Johnson, Scott Gladstein, Caleb Alysworth, Jeremiah Zerby, Ian Sisson and Mike Myler have provided a massive, interesting book here – the love for the genre breathes from the pages and the fluff inherent in quite a few of these options remains compelling and cool. Now don’t expect a campaign setting here – this is a crunch-book with some setting-hints; If you’re looking for a setting, then this might not be for you. Continue reading, though.

Why? Because this massive book is essentially, for better and for worse, a huge grab-bag. Here and there, LRGG devises an alternate rule for something already codified by mainstream Pathfinder in another way, so an awareness and weariness of overlaps and stacking is required of prospective DMs. If you’re willing to approach Dragon Tiger Ox under this premise, though, you’ll be rewarded – unlike many books that feature complaints like the ones I fielded in the above paragraphs, Dragon Tiger Ox breathes the spirit of a true labor of love. In fact, rereading this review, it may even seem less positive than I intended it to be. Yes, there are potentially problematic options in here – but there is also a veritable treasure trove of options to scavenge, allow and use in your campaigns. From the iconic styles to the uncommon items, to the nice codification of ki that opens these tricks for a plethora of builds, Dragon Tiger Ox can be considered a great achievement and most importantly, a fun book.

Is it perfect? No. Do I consider all in this book good or balanced? No. Can I see myself using the vast majority of content herein? Heck yes! While not perfect, I do encourage any fan of WuXia or those wishing to run eastern campaigns to check this book out – it makes for a nice resource to have and its price is rather fair as well. Hence, in spite of some rough edges and the formatting glitches, my final verdict will clock in at 4 stars with the caveat that a system-savvy DM should carefully contemplate the content herein prior to using it – some pieces might be inappropriate for some campaigns/rule-book combinations.

Endzeitgeist out.

While not for every campaign, the Tome of Twisted Things is full of interesting and useful ideas and resources that could be easily incorporated into a campaign. Mostly they will fit into a campaign world where the fight between good and evil is brutal and where good is losing ground that is the sort of situation where the Darkborn and Avengers would thrive. My only real complaint is the pinkish background of the PDF which is a little disturbing to stare at.

The Tome of Twisted Things is a selection of darkness-tinged resources for Pathfinder, new prestige and variant classes, a new race and supporting feats. It begins with the Darkborn prestige class who draw upon the power of evil to defeat evil, a classic conceit. They must balance their dedication to good with their increasing urge to do evil. The class has powers called ‘darkweaves’ that are activated by bidding their ‘wickedness’ against the purity of their target, which is an interesting mechanic. They gain some interesting power but must always be fighting against the temptation to embrace the evil that fuels their abilities. Good stuff. But it seems that they should have knowledge (planes) as a class skill as they have several abilities that interact with outsiders.

Next up is the Avenger, a paladin variant that serves the god of retribution and is focused on settling scores, injure them and get stronger against the thing that injured them. The Ruiner is an anti-paladin archetype who just wants to tear down the world and gains bonuses when doing so. The Tyrant prestige class wraps up the class section with someone who wants to rule and will crush any who oppose that vision, an interesting option for lawful villains.

The new race is the Warped, children of a summoner and an eidolon, these are the definition of unusual but interesting. They gain access to a very limited amount of eidolon evolution but have no place where they fit in, being so rare and strange, making them a perfect sort for becoming adventurers. The warped also have access to two class archetypes: the Bloodborn (summoner) who summon creatures from their own blood, and the Monk of the Flowing Form, who master the adaptability of their own body.

Twenty new feats, and one new trait, round out this work, all but one dealing with class or race abilities from this product, but they provide a variety of interesting -if niche- options.

Disclosure: As a featured reviewer for RPGNow/DriveThroughRPG, I received my copy of this product for free from the publisher for the purpose of this review.

Note: Read more reviews and other gaming articles at my journal https://seaofstarsrpg.wordpress.com/

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This sourcebook for Little Red Goblin Games' glorious, innovative Scifi-setting clocks in at 41 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 2 pages of SRD, leaving us with 37 pages of content, so let's take a look, shall we?

We kick off this pdf in style, with a fully-depicted Battle-march for the Sentinels - "O, Death". And yes, I tried singing it and it does work, cadence-wise. We hence kick off this pdf's coverage of the Ewgee with a survey of the sentinel organization - from ranks in the military, to training and even including their oath, this one oozes flair and style.

The Psychic rules of Necropunk also get suppelmental information here, with the Psyoff. While nomenclature may sound none too impressive here, these guys essentially generate a tactical grid, in which allies can share senses, memories and even have PPI assigned to them - the storytelling potential, beyond the combat potential, for this one is vast. And yes, entering the mind of hostiles and talking to them, soothing golems - possible. A power is also tied to the new crown of god weapon, which can be made to fire lines and yes, bursts.

The Living Saints of the (in my opinion) somewhat creepy Prime Bloodline get a wildcard archetype that gets a free perfection at 1st level and may spend potential points on a number of unique Perfections -essentially, their potential is more geared towards becoming an Übermensch - enhanced immune systems, perfect immune systems, eidetic memory, truly superb vision, including the option to see e.g. x-rays and similar usually invisible forms of radiation and spectrums. Nice, even though an explicit mention of "this modifies Genius" etc. would have made the archetype somewhat easier to use. Sentinels of the Prime Bloodline may opt for the new Father archetype, which represents veterans of countless battles fought, with arrays of tricks that allow them to provide combat support to allies - think teamwork-enhancing commander. Solid one.

Sisters are the immaculate seductresses of the Prime Bloodline - while sterile, these wildcards can adopt personas - adopting these allows her to e.g. borrow the diplomat's social competence, sneak attack and trap sense, bombs, monks etc. - cool idea for a jack-of-all-trades-class that actually has a distinct fluff, if not perfect balance between personas.

Engineer-members of the Necromancer's Guild may become Devs -addicted to change exists here as well as gaining a retractable tendril that can grapple foes, may biohack others and also get to choose from an array of controlled bio-mutations that allow you to hyperstimulate allies with your tendril, deliver poison etc. Phagen of the assassin's guild provide a cool dichotomy - they've got the license to kill and extract the problematic elements from the Necromancer's Guild.They also recieve a kind of pet ghoul slave made from a convicted serial killer that they can unleash on their foes and upgrade over the levels via body mods - powerful and something for everyone who wanted a summoner-style class for Necropunk - with the conundrums we've come to expect from the setting. No less than 13 new body mods, from doll skin to grappling rocket fists, frog skins, skin that can see, detachable eyeballs - the amount of strange options is cool and awesome and the potential complications reflect that.

What about a disc that can heighten bad moods and interrupt sleep? (I guess I have one of those implanted into my neocortex...). Beyond these, we are introduced to 10 exile shards, three of which come with their own racial stat modifications, one with an alternate racial trait and teh Gravs, born and bred for space, being particularly adept in Zero-G-environments - including two new armors/suits and a new weapon/tool.

While primitive in comparison, the gunslinger archetype space cowboy will find its fans among Cowboy Bebop fans, with a vehicle to represent the nomadic ways of the class being sponsored in the beginning - though, as fans of Firefly or said Anime may attest, these things may break down...

We also are introduced to the assassin's guild's tomb foot style and its 4 follow-up feats, one of which ought to point out whether the bonus it grants also extends to potential AoOs, but apart from that, an interesting, defensive style. If a sister chooses, she can learn the psychotic Bathory persona, which not only may sever limbs and is a deadly combatant, but also simply...dangerous. Familiarity with bioskins, improved awareness and control of one's body - solid feats here. We also get three cool new campaign traits - one that represents being in service to the planetary defense force and one I'd choose - unchecked ambition in the Byronian sense. And there would also be an antiquated sense of honor, from which I probably irl also suffer - so much roleplaying potential in these and solid benefits as well.

Engineers may learn a nigh perfect sense of time or a kind of echolocation that helps in total darkness, Magpies may learn to change minimum damage to maximum damage, Stalkers may use skills instead of teh steal maneuver in combat to deprive foes of their tools.

Finally, the linguist in em rejoices as we're introduced to the language of money as well as see Esperanto enter the fray and a total of 5 new dialects.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are this book's weaknesses - the sourcebook sports quite a few bolding-glitches and minor formatting issues and minor rules-editing issues, though never grievous ones, can also be found herein. Layout adheres to Necropunk's simple, relatively printer-friendly b/w-2-column standard and the interior artwork deserves special mention: Don't be fooled by the cover, seriously, the b/w-line-drawings herein are plenty, gorgeous and downright awesome. This is a beautiful book on the inside! The book also comes fully bookmarked with extensive, nested bookmarks.

Okay, let me get one thing straight from the get-go - the crunch herein is good, but not always perfect - designers Scott Gladstein, Caleb Alysworth, Jeremiah Zerby and Dayton Johnson have overall done a good job, but at least for me, Necropunk was never about playing the "I got better crunch than you"-game. Necropunk is about the setting, the ideas - much like an alien-less, thinking man's Warhammer 40K, it is a dark vision of the future, but not a grim one. Nor is it a rip-off, it has its own, distinct identity that appeals greatly to me, because it's for once a scifi setting that is not illogical or been there, done that. It's innovative.

The questions posed by each class, the conundrus, they are alive and the base campaign setting provided more ideas to me for any campaign than just about all campaign settings I've read in a while. This sourcebook proudly follows in that tradition by creating more content, more information, more philosophical questions to explore via classes and playstyles, should you choose to. Necropunk is about ROLEplaying with a heavy emphasis on the ROLEplaying - more so than just about all Pathfinder settings. The ideas herein - they are simply brilliant. The sisters with their personas, the serial killer-enslaving assassin that may end up on the other end of the leash - these are concepts so glorious, so exciting to explore, that I was grinning from ear to ear. Yes, this book may not be perfect, but it incites the imagination in glorious ways. Usually, I'd rate this down further for its avoidable glitches here and there, but after much deliberation, I can't ever justify this - the Ewgee sourcebook is too rich in ideas you can scavenge even if you don't use the necropunk setting. There are too many cool concepts herein. My final verdict will clock in at 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 for the purpose of this platform. Here's to hoping we'll see much, much more Necropunk in the years to come - this has all the makings of a cult setting in the making.

Endzeitgeist out.

A quick PDF (just a few pages), but if this is what we can expect from Little Red Goblin's vision of Barsoom, this is in good hands.

You get stats to make a Green Martian as a playable race, a few pages on "Pathfinder-izing" E R Burroughs' Mars (changes that need to be made--including races and classes, money, psionics, and a quick word about firearms), stats for a thoat, and a few Martian-specific feats.

It's quick'n'dirty, but in 8 pages this product made me happy.

I hope to see more, as I'd fork over money for additional products in this line.

And the cover? Look at that kick-arse cover!!!

A beautiful beast.

A nice take on the classical golem. Well written, nice picture. Ready to include in your campaign.

However no imediate scenario pops up, where a lard golem would be the first choice enemy. In my view it would be better if the lard golem was (instead of a fully grown CR 11 golem) a cheap and unstable version of a golem for the less experienced magic wielding fiend - and thus a challenge for a party in the starting range.

Dragon Tiger Ox is equal parts brilliant and underwhelming. When LRGG just goes off the rails and starts making stuff up, I really started to enjoy DTO.....however there are several parts in the book where I feel LRGG dropped the ball. Stuff like simply recommending every player a be gestalt X/Monk. That seems like such weak design, I don't understand why Little Red Goblin didn't just offer us some alternate base classes which include some martial arts elements, particularly when they put a whole lot of effort into some of the prestige classes and feats which are really good. Even when retreading some ground we've seen before LRGG managed to find a way to do many feats a little bit different and little bit better...but then there are so many odd design choices like encouraging people to do bad lip syncing at the table. I just wish DTO had been able to keep up consistent quality through out the book and I wish they had included guides for players to introduce their own fighting styles and the like as the hero developing a new style is such a big theme in the genre.

The author info lists four different people as having authored this book and that is certainly the way it feels. Not quiet a campaign guide to the world of DTO but not quiet just a cut and dry book of character options either it falls somewhere in-between. GM's looking for hand holding better look to other books, but groups looking for a good starting point to start crafting their own adventure will find a pretty good jumping off point here.

If you are a fan, looking for a some options, feats etc. etc. to spice things up for eastern MA style characters, you will find some good stuff here, some really good stuff in fact particularly when combined with some of the excellent adaptations we've seen for the monk from other publisher; and GMs can certainly use some of the setting elements in a game. But that said I can't see myself playing DTO on its own with a party full of gestalt monks as its authors intended and certain parts of this PDF will likely never see play at most people's game table.

In the end I give Dragon Tiger Ox 3 stars as a general Pathfinder product but 4 if you are a hard core Wuxia/Wushu fan.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This pdf is 34 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 31 pages of content, so let's take a look, shall we?

We kick this pdf off with the Darkborn-PrC - essentially a character who opts to take the wickedness into him/herself, slowly becoming the monster they ought to destroy - in the words of "The Dark knight" -either die a hero or become a monster. The PrC spans 10 levels and ofefrs d10, 4+Int skills per level, 3/4 BAB-progression, 7 levels of spell progression and medium ref-saves. Unlike many other PrC, this class comes with a fighter/melee-centric alternative that offers full BAB-progression, but no spell-progression. Rules-wise, darkborn get a wickedness-pool of 3 x HD. Which brings me to two concepts - wickedness and purity: When the Darkborn uses his/her Darkweaving ability, a non AoO, non-touch SU with range, both s/he and the victim wager purity versus wickedness-points and the creature that wagered less is afflicted with the darkweaving. While said points do regenerate, they don't do so particularly fast, so a poker-face is helpful indeed. From exiled outsiders to walking on spiritual shards of glass to damage bonuses and negative energy damage, the 8 different effects truly are intriguing and fit thematically well with the PrC. On the downside of the doomed hero-angle, the PrC exudes a seductive draw - every level may see the hero slide closer towards the evil they seek to combat and an alternate rule may even make taking class-levels in other classes harder... Darkborn also learn to suppress darkweave effects that affect them, detect evil and undergo at later levels essentially an evil outsider apotheosis. Oh...and the capstone...you better quit before the capstone, for it has you transform into a truly vile monster, consumed by the darkness - of course, the lure may prove to be too great and still see you become an NPCs, perhaps even the final villain of the campaign? (And yes, there is an optional rule to avoid this depressing fate - but honestly, I think I'd omit that one - I'm into bleak, dark endings. Still, its presence is awesome!)This PrC does a great job at handling the doomed antihero-concept very well and while the purity-score determination may be a bit extra work for the DM, the formula is easy enough to do it on the fly - so all in all: One superb PrC!

The next class we get herein would be the Avenger, an alternate take on the Paladin that is not restricted in their alignment, gets no spellcasting and channel negative energy. Being all about revenge, they learn to place marks on designated prey and deal more damage (cha-mod) versus foes that have injured him/her. Foes designated as targets of this retribution also heal the avenger by cha-mod whenever he manages a crit versus the target. The avengers also learn so-called reparations - effects in addition to retribution, which come from a wide variety of selections that scale up over the levels and the class also nets auras that extend powers to the avenger's allies, allowing them to provide bonus damage to allies helping them with their revenge. They also learn to imbue their weapons with weapon qualities and finally, as a capstone, their get a kind of semi-apotheosis with DR and max negative energy channeling and all and their prey becomes almost impossible to resurrect. Again, a quite awesome class- the avenger makes for a flavorful, cool, alternate class!

Third among the offerings herein would be the Ruiner, who replaces touch of corruption with the option to supplement the damage dealing spells he casts with additional damage and may also thus increase the damage dealt via channel energy as soon as s/he gain it. At 3rd level and every 3 after that, the Ruiner may choose a Ruin, their replacement for cruelties. - essentially, being all about pain, they are focused on dealing painful and bleeding wounds, penalizing foes' saves against pain and yes, they may even negate morale benefits with their dread auras. A deadly, cool concept for an avatar of the blackest, most destructive nihilism. Neat!

The Tyrant PrC offers d10, 4+Int skills per level, full BAB, medium fort- and will-saves and essentially is a non-good, extremely lawful and honorable, but potentially twisted individual, fuelling his power with conviction (of which he gets 2+cha-mod +2 per class level): Tyrants are specialists of demoralization and may even demoralize the mindless and later even use conviction to prevent foes with a readied action to attack them - this is AWESOME! Stacking dominate person effects on the demoralized and smiting chaos to finally become a larger than life sovereign of his/her own domain, this PrC could have easily been a lame anti-chaos-borefest and instead proves to be a rather cool little PrC, albeit one that could have used a tad bit more versatility.

We also get a new race with the warped -offspring of mortals and eidolons, these folks replace the attribute modifiers of their base-race by +2 Con, +2 Wis and -4 Cha, get darkvision 6o feet, are treated as aberrations for effects and spells (but don't gain the benefits of the type) and get an evolution pool of 1 + 1 for every 5 character levels. Said evolutions follow their own distinct rules, preventing e.g. the skilled evolution from becoming overbearing. Only 1 and 2 point evolution are eligible and transforming costs a full-round action that provokes AoOs and leaves the Warped sickened - and is limited to the amount of times per day it can be used."We should wait before returning to the city, gotta get rid of that claws...wait, the paladins are around the corner?? Oh damn, better scram..." While they may Disgusie self as if not having any evolutions, still - quite some roleplaying potential there! They also get +4 to saves versus polymorph and +2 to Knowledge (planes) and Intimidate. A strong race, yes, but their social stigma should make sure that they remain a balanced and cool option. Two thumbs up!

We also get 2 new archetypes - the Bloodborn Summoner , a racial archetype of the Warped, who prepares spells as a witch, substituting his/her eidolon for a familiar and uses the magus' spell-list as well as Int as governing attribute. However, the eidolon is also changed: d8, -2 Wis, Int and Cha and 1/2 str and dex-bonuses over the levels. In order to unleash the eidolon, the summoner has to cut himself and let the beast gush forth from his/her wounds - interesting concept, especially since the archetype allows the warped to slowly partially ignore the restrictions imposed on their own mutable forms. We btw. also get 4 favored class options for the Warped.

The second racial archetype for the Warped herein would be the Monk of the Flowing Form - these monks blend their own shifting powers and natural weapons with the training of the basic monk-class. Again, a compelling, neat little archetype!

Finally, we get 20 feats, one of which is a story feat and one campaign trait - the feats per se are cool, offering e.g. synergy for avenger and rogue-builds, cavalier/avengers, more options for darkborn and even more tools for the warped. Whether by evoking the Lex Talionis ("An Eye for an Eye"), adding judgments to retributions, swearing dwarven blood oaths or fueling your meta-magic with wickedness - the feats one and all work rather well and even a feat the offers synergy between noble and Tyrant-classes is provided - overall: Kudos!

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting has traditionally not been Little Red Goblin Games' strongest suit. Since their imaginative, intriguing campaign setting Necropunk was the first indicator on what they can do, I'm happy to report that the team of editors Dayton Johnson, Christina Johnson and Jeremiah Zerby have done a great job here - apart from the fluff-text in a couple of feats not being italicized and similar inconsequential nitpicks like "immediate reaction" instead of "reacting with an immediate action", I have the pleasure to report that LRGG have not stepped down from the level they've reached with Necropunk, instead applying the vastly increased standards to "regular" publications like this. Tl;dr: Editing and formatting very good, though not yet perfect.

The book comes fully bookmarked for your convenience. Layout. OMG. With a slight purplish tint, black borders and SUPERB, original and copious b/w-interior art by Tamas Baranya and Nathan Winburn, this book is a beauty to behold and ranks simply among the finest examples of b/w-art out there - aficionados of dark fantasy tones and artworks will love these evocative pieces.

Ian Sisson, Caleb Aylsworth, Christos Gurd and Scott Gladstein have created herein the BY FAR best book in their "Tome"-series I've read so far - while the purity-mechanic may be a little bit clunky in the beginning and not for everyone, it is a daring design - and one that does not extend to the other classes. The variant classes capture their respective topics well, their rules-language is rather polished and oftentimes simply INTERESTING. Imaginative, daring even. The avenger especially is a cool character and probably my new go-to class to recreate Guts from Berserk. By the way: If you haven't read this milestone of dark fantasy manga, go out there and get it NOW. (The anime is essentially btw. ONLY the extensive flashback!) Where was I? Oh yes, Tome of Wicked Things. Sorry there - this book just felt like it would seamlessly fit in one of the darkest and coolest sagas I've read so far and its content is overall...well, just awesome.

The new race is working surprisingly well, its restrictions preventing the "overpowered-omg-eidolon-evolutions" aspect I dreaded, while providing a great way to play a character that looks normal, but has a monster waiting just below the surface. Thematically, content fits seamlessly with presentation - from conan-style headers (with swords through letters) to the artworks to the content and we get one crunch-book aficionados of dark fantasy should not let slip through their fingers. While I could complain about the aforementioned minor glitches, that would by hypocrisy at its finest and simply not do this awesome pdf justice - The innovative ideas herein are more than enough to let one see past the exceedingly minor, almost non-existent little issues and hence, my final verdict will clock in at a heartfelt recommendation of 5 stars + seal of approval.

Congratulations to the crew of LRGG - if this is what we can expect from them now, then start saving and keep an eye on them, ladies and gentlemen!

Endzeitgeist out.

Just how accepted is magic use in your campaign world? I don't mean is it possible, if you are playing Pathfinder - indeed any fantasy RPG - it's likely that there is at least some magic around; but how does society react to the use of magic? Consider the plot potentials of there being at least somewhere in the campaign world where magic is feared or even forbidden. Then crack open a copy of this book.

First up is a new base class, suitable for use when established religion (perhaps in league with civil authority) has taken against magic use... it's a Mage Hunter, a Paladin retooled for the purpose of stamping out magic wherever it rears its ugly head. An alternate use is also suggested, that mages themselves might use them to deal with rogue magicians who refuse to abide by the rules of whatever body controls magic use, perhaps a powerful college of magic which holds sway over magic use in the area, requiring its graduates or indeed anyone using magic there to abide by its codes of practice. They tend to a professional approach and often do not hold any actual emnity towards those who practice the arcane arts.

Next is a prestige class, the Spellweaver. This individual is an arcanist himself, but enjoys dissecting spells, analysing in great detail how they work... and can disrupt and manipulate the arcane energies that others have brought into existence. The description of how this works is a bit muddled, but it's a potent concept.

Another prestige class follows, the Arcane Luddite. This fellow distains any magical assistance, as a warrior he relies on his own prowess alone. Or at least that's what he says. Many use magic if they must, but only with the ultimate end of ridding the world of its taint.

Next comes a collection of feats to use against arcane magicks. They are quite interesting, and have a range of prerequisites, so carefully planning is necessary to ensure that you can qualify for the ones you fancy. There are also some new class options - for example a Ranger may take 'Spellcaster' as a favoured enemy - and a new weapon enhancement, spell void.

This supplement opens up some quite interesting possibilities. Most campaigns delight in magic use, so you could turn things on their head and run a game where the characters are determined to stamp it out. Or you may choose to equip the NPCs in a particular magic-hating area with these abilities and harry the party when they, all unknowing, trespass...

Like many players and GMs, I've been looking for a fix for the cavalier. When this caught my eye, I thought perhaps I had found a reasonable fix for the worst class in the Pathfinder game.

I will say that the Fencer is a good choice for anyone interested in playing a Cavalier. It is significantly better, faster, and stronger than the base Cavalier. However, there are some issues with it in terms of game balance. There are also a couple wording issues and typos to hammer out, but an attentive player/GM should be able to catch these.

Pros

Grit: The addition of the Grit mechanic to the class is well done and much needed. It doesn't take away Challenge, but gives the Fencer additional options during combat for that much needed flourish and unique attack options that a Fighter can't access. Basically, it's the thing separating the Cavalier/Fencer from being replaced by a Fighter. Rapiers: Since the Fencer is somewhat based upon European archetypes, it is reliant upon rapiers as a weapon. This is a much needed reason to use a rapier as a full BAB class, when previously there was none. Colors: While somewhat similar to the Banner class feature that it replaces, it's far more useful in that it replaces a bonus on charge attacks with a bonus to CMD. That's more useful to EVERYONE in the party rather than just the Cavalier. Ace of Blades: A definitely needed ability for the Cavalier in general, which makes the Fencer the preferred archetype for Cavalier. HOWEVER, it does not say it replaces Supreme Charge explicitly, so GMs be prepared for a potential loophole. Cloak Style: This is actually a pretty clever way to handle a cloak as a weapon. But there is one issue, so look below in the Cons section. Included Racial Favored Class Bonuses: I cannot stress how nice it is to have additional Favored Class bonuses for the archetype when it has removed all the things that the original class's racial favored bonuses affected.

Cons

Parry and Riposte: I liked the idea upon reading, however the mechanics behind it are a little less than viable. Only the Shield bonus from wearing an actual shield or the class feature from rapier usage applies, not magical equipment like a Ring of Shield. Enhancement bonuses are taken into consideration though, so perhaps it could be more viable at the higher levels than I give it credit for. Deeds: The Fencer, like the Gunslinger, gains access to a list of Deeds. Unlike the Gunslinger, they have a set list that they gain at specific levels with no real choice. This isn't such a bad thing, as it limits the potentially fatally stupid choices a player could make, but it does feel a little less like Deeds and more like Class Features since all of them are Extraordinary ability. Weapon Expertise: Just as I said that the Cavalier/Fencer should have an edge over the Fighter, the Fighter should retain their edge over the Cavalier/Fencer. Rather than give it equivalent Fighter levels, simply give it Weapon Focus/Specialization and their Greater versions as Bonus Feats and skip the equivalency. It will limit potential loopholes. It also crimps the Single Sword style when they gain those feats in their progression. Team Work Feats: If you're like me, you don't care for Teamwork Feats. The Fencer simply loses them, which isn't a really big deal, but it does get away from the idea of the Cavalier/Fencer as the Tactician of the party. It's more of a thematic than actual issue. Parrying Dagger Style: This does not gain Two-Weapon Fighter, so the Fencer must pick those feats up themselves if they want to be able to even think of hitting a target with their offhand. Otherwise, it's based more around using the dagger as a shield, so there isn't much need to attack with the offhand. Cloak Style: While clever, there is a wording issue. Veiled Intentions in the style needs to be explicitly worded and show the sneak attack progression rather than simply say "equal to a Rogue half their Fencer level." And even then, it seems a bit too Loss of the Orders: Again, this isn't a huge loss, but it is a loss. They do however gain the 8th level ability of their Order, even if it is at 14th level.

While my Cons list might be larger than the Pros, I actually do like the class and the idea of it. The implementation seems pretty decent enough that a group could play using it without too many problems, it just needs a little bit of polishing so it can shine. I personally would prefer to use the Fencer as the base rather than the base Cavalier. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

As for the Magebane archetype, I'm not a fan of it. Mostly because it is far too specialized against casters with ray spells, which very few of my caster villains use when there are perfectly good minions to throw at the party.

Onward to the Meister.

THE ABSOLUTE MAJOR FAULT IN THE CLASS: The write up for the book says it's a Fighter archetype, while in the text of the book it says it's a Cavalier archetype. THIS IS A MAJOR ISSUE. While I'm absolutely sure that it's a Fighter archetype, I needed to point this out so nobody else thinks it is for Cavalier.

Basically, by sacrificing Armor Training and Armor Mastery, they gain increased skill with a select weapon group. This is more or less, a waste of printed space and kind of a let down given the name. The main reason it is a letdown is because there are already Archetypes out there that pretty much do this specialization, so I'm not going to go into a list of pros and cons for this one. I give it 1 out of 5, it's just not needed.

The Myrmidon

Really, this is just the hybrid of a Fighter and a Monk. Flurry of Blows with "bladed weapons," (thankfully, the Designer Note does clarify this so there won't be too much arguing over what it means) and an increase in Monk and Fighter level equivalencies. Really, this is only for that special multiclass combo. I'll give it 2 out of 5, mostly because I don't see it being for anything OTHER than Monk and Fighter.

The New Weapons section is a good addition and will hopefully give your history/weapon buff player something to halt their talking your ears off about "real historical weapons and usage" vs "RPG weapon choices." All the weapons are also equivalent to others in terms of feat specialization, thankfully. No need to worry about your +3 Spadroon being sundered and leaving you with three feats utterly useless forever on. I give it 4 out of 5 stars because its always nice to have variety with weapons for players without removing the need for Exotic Weapons.

The New Feats section is also a good addition. Thankfully, none of the feats are too overpowered or particularly underpowered. I give it a 3 out of 5 stars just because nothing stands out in a good or bad way.

Overall, I say that the Fencer is a much better alternative to the Cavalier and that it alone makes this book worth the price. The rest of the things in it, you can take or leave. But make sure you check out the Fencer.